But calling machine learning algorithms just algorithms is not helpful at all. I had to work through a few books and courses to get a decent understanding of ML

But calling machine learning algorithms just algorithms is not helpful at all. I had to work through a few books and courses to get a decent understanding of ML despite the fact that I had a CS degree and a good understanding of discrete algorithms. In short, the things that are put on top of the technology stack do not reduce to the layers below in a useful way.